The First Guy
by Angelina Johnson
Summary: One-shot. Set post 4x18, after Marley reveals she's been writing original songs. In which Jake tries to be a really cute boyfriend but instead gets a not-so-cute surprise. Sort of one-sided Jarley. Implied Ryley.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Author's Note: **Inspired by Marley's confession to the camera in 4x18 about her hidden stash of original songs. Kind of sad. Kind of makes me feel guilty for shipping Ryley so much.

I apologize to everyone waiting for new chapters of "I'll Be Coming Home, Wait For Me" and "Everybody Hurts." I'm working on them, and they should be up soon. Sometimes an idea just kind of takes over and needs to be written first.

**Summary**: In which Jake tries to be a really cute boyfriend but instead gets a not-so-cute surprise.

**The First Guy**

Jake Puckerman really did try to be a good guy for his girlfriend. He wanted to make her happy and treat her right, but it wasn't really in his nature. It was definitely something that took a lot of getting used to. But he really cared about her, okay? Marley Rose was his first priority, and he was pretty sure that this week had made it even clearer than ever. When that gun had gone off in the halls of McKinley High School, his first instinct had been to grab Marley and run. Everyone else in the Glee club had been pulling out phones to text their loved ones, and sure, he had recorded a message for his mom and Puck, but all he had really cared about was making sure Marley was okay. It had broken his heart to watch how frantic she grew when she couldn't get in touch with her mom. It had scared him silly to think that those moments in the choir room could have been their last – they were still so young, and there was still so much he wanted to prove to her. He had never wanted anything as much as he wanted her to realize how special she was.

Sure, he had tried in the past, but he had mostly screwed those opportunities up. So far, he had sung to her at Ryder's suggestion, he had given her a signed calendar, also partly at Ryder's suggestion, and he had given her a string of Valentine's gifts that had also been inspired by his friend's ideas. Marley had explained to him that it was some kind of weird Cyrano situation (whatever that meant), and that all of those things didn't matter to her because Jake was the one who had stepped up and been there for her. Jake was the one that she was with, and she always assured him that she didn't want Ryder. Yet it still kind of stung that the day he had _finally_ come up with something he thought was really awesome for her on his own, the first words out of her mouth afterwards had been about kissing another dude.

So yeah, ever since that he had wanted to try again to really impress her and really prove to her how much he cared. He could be sensitive and stuff too, and Ryder finally seemed to be moving on and leaving them alone, despite his recent outburst accusing them of Catfishing him. With Ryder out of the picture, it wasn't like he was worried about losing Marley to someone better that cared about her almost as much (fine, maybe just as much) as Jake did. The shooting, though, had only solidified his need to make her feel as special and loved as he could. He had been taking it for granted that he had all the time in the world before, but now he was living life with a little bit more urgency.

And that was why, when he and Marley were watching a movie one night, he pretended he was going to the bathroom only to slip into Marley's bedroom and ruffle through her desk drawer. He felt around until he figured out a way to open the fake bottom, and bingo! There were the original songs she had mentioned being so proud of during those tense moments in the choir room. When he had asked her about them after the incident was over, she had retreated into herself and said they weren't a big deal, but she really wasn't giving herself enough credit. Jake was positive that his girlfriend's songs would be as amazing as she was, and he wanted to prove it to her by learning one of them and playing it for her. If he found one that really stood out, he might even recruit his fellow Glee club members to perform it for her and show her just how awesome she was at, like, everything. His plan seemed flawless – it was a great way to show Marley how proud he was of her, and how much he believed in her.

He started to skim through a few of the scraps of paper that were covered in Marley's loopy handwriting, but he heard footsteps in the hall and instead stuffed a small stack of them into his backpack, which he had left in her room when they finished studying earlier. He left a few songs in the drawer, hoping she would be too tired tonight to notice others were missing. He would put his plan into action as fast as he could – maybe photocopy a few and sneak them back into her drawer tomorrow. He jittered with excitement as he darted into Marley's bathroom and flushed the toilet. When he came out, he found Marley sitting at the edge of her bed smiling at him.

"Miss me that much that you had to follow me?" he teased, taking her hand and leading her back towards their waiting movie in the other room. He shot a glance backwards over his shoulder to ensure that everything was back in order

The next day dawned with Jake in a much different mood. He texted Marley and asked her to meet him in the choir room before homeroom. When he arrived, she was smiling sweetly at him from beneath one of her newsboy caps, and for a second he almost forgot all about her songs and all about his plans for what he needed to say. For a second it was like everything was just the same, like he was staring at his wonderful girlfriend who in his eyes could do no wrong.

Then the second passed. Marley reached out to take his hand, but he backed away from her. Her eyes, which he thought had only lost their shine in recent days because of the horror of the shooting, clouded over instantly.

"Jake…" she began questioningly, and he shook his head. He didn't want to listen to her right now.

"Are you the one Catfishing Ryder?" he demanded angrily, and Marley's blinked in surprise.

"No, of course not," she responded earnestly, and he almost believed her. He wanted to believe her. He didn't really believe her, though.

"Dammit, Marley, just tell me the truth," he insisted. "It's got to be you."

"Jake, where is this coming from? We've talked about this already; I thought we agreed we had no idea who it was and that we were worried about him." Her voice rose to a different octave that was tinted with desperation and pleading, and he wanted to think that okay, maybe she really could be telling the truth. Maybe she wasn't just screwing with both of them – she had never struck him as that type of girl. That had been part of what was so awesome about her; she had been so good that she had made him want to be better, too. But he was a freaking idiot.

He thought back to 24 hours ago, when he had first been hatching a plan on how to tell Marley how much he cared about her through her own words. He wished that he could go back to that time – hell, he wished he could go back to a time even further back, before the shooting had happened, before everything had changed – and tell himself not to do it. There was another way he could show her how much he cared, and he could stay blissfully oblivious. He could continue to go through every day with Marley happily by his side.

He had expected her songs to be great. He had expected them to be emotional, and powerful, and beautiful. He had expected them to be about her friends, and her struggles with her eating disorders, and maybe for some of them to even be about him. He hadn't expected them to be about Ryder.

"Jake?" Marley asked hesitantly; he had gotten lost in his own thoughts and had forgotten that she had even asked him a question. "Jake, what's wrong? Why are you accusing me of something I didn't do?"

"Because you're into him," Jake said bluntly. "You convinced me that you're not, and I'm freaking stupid for believing you. God, why would you just lead both of us on like this?"

"Jake, you're not making any sense." Marley breathed heavily, and she looked genuinely hurt. And yeah, maybe he was being a little crazy. Maybe he was desperate and making stuff up – Marley had had her phone with her the entire time during the shooting, after all – but he was pissed off and hurt and he needed to lash out at something. It just seemed easiest to lash out at her at the moment; how could he love one person so much and completely hate them at the same time? How could she build him up like that and then totally ruin him without even knowing what she'd done?

"I'm not making any sense, Marley? I'm not making any sense? I'll show you what doesn't make sense," he huffed, thrusting the first song that came out of his bag at her. She looked down at it in horror, recognizing her own handwriting.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, ashen-faced. "Jake, where did you get this?"

"I wanted to surprise you. I wanted to perform your stuff for you and show you how good it is. Guess the joke's on me, huh?" he spat bitterly as he pointed towards the title on the paper. The top of it said 'For R,' and the date was right after McKinley had put on _Grease_. The first time Jake had read through it, he had totally ignored the title and the date and had imagined that the lyrics were about him. After all, he thought that he had really been there for Marley and had tried to take care of her and make her feel better about herself, and the song was about a broken girl whose knight in shining armor rode in and saved her from herself. It all seemed a little bit Taylor Swift to him, but hey, the girl sold millions of records, and Marley did want to be a singer on the radio someday.

"You went through my stuff," she repeated numbly, looking down at the paper. "You had no right to do that."

"And you had no right to lie to me about how you felt about Ryder," Jake shot back.

"I didn't – I didn't lie," Marley stammered. "Did you even look at the date on this? It's from before we started dating. I never said I didn't care about Ryder, but I chose you, Jake! I love _you_." She seemed sincere, and if it had just been the one song, he might have believed her. He might have taken her in his arms and apologized to her for overreacting, and she might have told him that he shouldn't go through her stuff, even if his idea was really sweet.

Instead, he pulled out the second song.

"What about this one, then?" Marley sighed; this one was dated right after Valentine's Day, and had the title 'For R, again' scrawled at the top.

"I'm guessing you're not going to believe that it's about R2D2 and I just forgot to write down the last couple of letters?" she said in defeat. He shook his head, starting to read her own lyrics to her.

"_I used to think he was everything I wanted, but now I'm haunted by someone else's eyes. Things before that left me breathless now feel like naught but lies_…" Marley covered her eyes with her hands and rubbed them violently, which cut Jake off.

"So what if I got a little bit mixed up after he kissed me? We've been through this too. I picked you, Jake. I picked you before, and I picked you again then. Why does it matter what I felt in between?" Marley's voice cracked again. He knew that he had cornered her, knew that it wasn't fair that he had caught her off guard, but he had felt so sure of everything between the two of them. He had thought she felt the same way, and he didn't really know how to cope with the fact that he had lost whatever innocence he had left and was now probably losing his girlfriend too in just a matter of days.

She bit her lip and blinked at him through tearfully pleading eyes. He could get it if she had been confused after Valentine's Day. He really could. He wished that he could just move past things and hold her again, let things go back to how they had been even 24 hours ago. Forget going back to before the shooting now; could he just go back to 24 hours ago?

"You had no right," she whispered again. "It's not fair to hold this against me. This doesn't mean anything; this doesn't change what we have. This doesn't change how I feel." She was begging, and he couldn't understand why. He wanted to take her words at face value, he wanted to believe that she wanted him. Maybe she really did think she wanted Jake; maybe she hadn't Catfished Ryder, either. Maybe she had no idea what she was doing or whether she was making any of the right decisions. Maybe they could work things out. Maybe he could still be with her. Maybe…Maybe not.

"Marley… You wrote this one the day after the shooting," Jake said, tossing the last sheet of paper at her. He tried to remain cold; he didn't want to let her see the cracks in his armor. He wanted to believe that maybe there were songs about him back in that drawer too, songs filled with love and passion and tenderness that these songs about Ryder couldn't possibly begin to compare with. But if that was the case, why hadn't she said so by now?

"Jake," she repeated softly. Her voice sounded almost hollow, and he waved the paper that had '_R…always' _at the top in her direction again.

"Read it, Marley. Read what it says," he insisted, and she let out a long sigh. She began reading, almost robotic.

"_The terror unravels all around, life's precious moments flash by me; I see all of the things I'll and I wonder what we could be, if only we survive this day and find our own hearts free_." She stopped, and Jake nodded grimly, indicating that he had heard enough. He had read the words over and over again, had stayed up all night thinking about them. The other songs had sucked – well, okay, they didn't suck, and that as the problem. He could understand them, though. He remembered those times, and it had been tough to see how Ryder wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to Marley. He had thought that maybe the other guy would be the one to win her over. He had been wrong. Marley had picked him, and he thought she hadn't looked back at all. But this last song? The song that she had written for Ryder after the most terrifying day of their lives? That he couldn't ignore.

"Jake…" she said, but this time silenced herself. What was there for her to say?

"It's always going to come back to him. As long as you never know what it's like, it's never going to go away," Jake said dully. He had come to this conclusion on his own the night before, but talking to Marley could only confirm that he was right. God, he had never hated being right so much before in his life.

"You're not even denying it. You're not denying any of it," he pointed out for the sake of his own sanity. He had to break the silence. The smile that Marley had worn when he walked in was completely gone, and she was gazing at him through sad eyes.

"I love you," she whispered miserably, and he nodded. She wasn't lying; he knew she couldn't fake the way that things had felt between them. There had just always been barriers, too – barriers that he thought were caused by her insecurities, which he thought were the root of his unwillingness to give herself to him completely. But it wasn't insecurity – it was his floppy haired best friend that was holding her back. And even when the other boy had given up on her, when he had accepted that Marley didn't like him and had tried to move on – well, whether she meant for it to happen or not, Marley didn't seem ready to accept that.

"I can't do this if you're not in it 100%, Marley. You need to know for sure. Because when that gun went off, you were the only thing on my mind. But when I look at this, I know that you can't say the same thing for me."

"I swear I'm not the one Catfishing him." That was all Marley could manage to say in reply. Jake stared at her through narrowed eyes, and she gave him a sad smile.

"You really are wonderful, you know. And I was so glad that you were there by my side when all of it happened. I just…I wanted him by my side, too. I didn't want to feel that way, but I did," she admitted, and Jake couldn't help but return her sad smile.

"You know what, Marls? I believe you. I believe that you never wanted to hurt anybody." It was the best he could do for now, and her eyes watered a little bit.

"But I did." She spoke with a little bit of self-loathing in her voice.

"But you did," he agreed, and he leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. "You're the only girl I've ever loved, Marley. It just sucks that another awesome guy fell for you at the same time. Isn't there some saying that if you love two people, pick the second one, because if you loved the first you never would have fallen for the second?"

"Jake, that's not – " she began to protest again.

"All I wanted to do was make you happy, Marley. But I'm not the second guy. I was the first guy. Maybe the first guy will get a different ending this time, and maybe the girl will come back, but right now I think the second guy deserves his chance. He's going through a lot right now," Jake said quietly. "So I should probably go before I change my mind and keep you all to myself forever just because you're too nice to break my heart."

"What if I don't want you to go?" Marley began, but her voice lacked conviction, and her eyes were going back and forth between the papers in her lap and the brown eyes that were gazing at her intently. For a second, he wondered if he really was doing the right thing – he knew it wasn't the right thing for him, but he had had the conviction that it was the right thing for her, to walk away and let her explore her feelings for Ryder. For a second, he wanted to believe that maybe it wasn't the right thing for her after all, and that maybe she belonged with him and he was making a big deal out of nothing. Tense moments brought out all of the 'what-ifs' in life, after all.

Her eyes lingered on the paper where she had scrawled '_R…always_' just a little bit too long, and he turned to go.

"Good luck, Marley. If he screws things up, I promise I'll kick his ass for you," Jake said, trying to act nonchalant when really he just wanted to punch something. Why did he have to be all noble and shit? Why did he have to walk away from the best thing that he had ever had in his life?

A small part of Jake had hoped that Marley might still follow him, that she might still beg him to let her choose him one more time, but she hadn't.

He passed Ryder in the hallway as he walked briskly towards the exit of McKinley (Jake really didn't see any reason why he should have to stay in school that day; his attendance had been pretty awesome since he had started dating Marley, but with all the fear and suspicion at the school that had followed the shooting, he figured he could take a free day). The brunette boy looked lost in thought, and his usual goofy grin was still missing. Jake clapped him on the shoulder on his way out.

"Dude, I'm sorry about whoever has been pulling all this Catfish crap on you," he said sincerely. "But… try to cheer up, man. I think things are about to get a lot better for you. Maybe not today, or this week, or even this month. But I think things are finally going to go your way. And you have my blessing. Just try not to rub it in my face too much at first." Ryder looked at him in utter confusion, but Jake walked away without saying another word. Being a good Samaritan sucked. Loving somebody more than he loved himself sucked. But maybe that was why he did it. Maybe that was why he did all of it. Maybe all of this time he had been trying to make her happy in all the wrong ways. He felt like today, by setting her free, maybe he had finally accomplished his own goal of showing her just how much he cared about her.


End file.
